The present invention relates generally to appliances used for removing certain parasitic insects, like lice, ticks and fleas, from the skin of humans and pets, and more particularly to a single hand-held tool for finding parasitic insects upon sections of hair-covered skin and removing the insects as they are found in a systematic process using the single tool.
Ectoparasites are parasitic insects that live in or on the skin of a host, and an associated infestation can cause significant harm to the affected host, be it human or animal, by way of infections and the transmittal of disease that the insects carry. Such parasitic insects include lice, bedbugs, fleas and ticks, all of which can carry harmful pathogens that may infect the host and cause a variety of diseases. Ticks, for example, can be vectors of many harmful diseases, including Lyme disease, Anaplasmosis, Ehrlichia and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and the human victims of any of these diseases can further develop secondary, sometimes more serious conditions such as renal disease. Fleas are more troublesome to pet animals, but besides causing discomfort to the pet and an infestation of the home, a flea infestation can induce allergic dermatitis that is costly for the pet owner to treat and may also lead to a tapeworm infestation of the animal. While flea treatments and other preventatives can be effective, they can prove to be very costly and in some cases, contain harmful insecticides.
Good grooming and regular cleaning can help to reduce the likelihood of an infestation by these parasitic insects. However, there is little that can be done to eradicate these ectoparasites and prevent an infestation from occurring as long as the potential host, pet or human, is outdoors and exposed to wildlife or an environment wherein these parasitic insects thrive. Careful inspection of the skin surfaces, therefore, is most important after coming in from out of doors or whenever there is a suspected exposure to any one of these parasitic insects. Unfortunately, these insects, particularly the so-called deer ticks, are extremely small and thus hard to locate, the nymph stage of these deer ticks being approximately one half millimeter in size. Compounding the problem of size in the detection process is the fact that the skin of the host is typically hair-covered, whether human or animal, so that location of the insects, often embedded in the skin, can be very difficult and time-consuming as it is typically required under the cover of human hair, such as in the area of the human scalp, or on the hair-coated body of a dog or cat. Once an ectoparasite is detected, its removal from the skin is always necessary to prevent disease transmittal. This entire process of location and removal of the parasitic insect is generally difficult, and even more so when involving children, long-haired individuals or restless pets.
Prior art forms of tools and appliances have been devised and developed, some to aid the process of locating the parasitic insects and others to facilitate and effect their removal from the host victim. A recent example of the former type of parasitic insect locator is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,618,289 to Aragonna et al., while a more recent example of the latter type of insect removal device is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,100,501 to von der Hyde. While these and other prior art devices have been satisfactory and appear effective in either locating the parasitic insect on the hair-covered host or in facilitating the removal of the insect, they have been limited in their respective functions and not able to effectively serve both functions of insect location and removal that is required to fully and safely treat the affected host victim of an ectoparasite infestation. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved hand-held tool for both locating parasitic insects upon sections of hair-covered skin and then removing the insects as they are located in a systematic process using the single tool.